This invention relates to pneumatic guns, air rifles, pellet rifles, paintball guns and the like. Such pneumatic guns are typically driven by either hand cocked springs, compressed gas, or hand operated pumps. The disadvantages of these guns are outlined in more detail below.
Air rifles have been around for many years and have seen numerous evolutionary changes over the years. The most common methods for propelling the projectile use the energy from compressed gas or from a spring. There are four major techniques shown in the prior art for launching the projectile with many variations based upon such teachings. These techniques include: (i) the use of stored compressed gas in the form of carbon dioxide cylinders or other high pressure storage tanks; (ii) using a powerful spring to push a piston which compresses air which then pushes the projectile; (iii) using a hand pump to pressurize the air for subsequent release; and (iv) using a direct acting means such as a solenoid plunger or centrifugal force to push the projectile out of the barrel. All of these methods have distinct disadvantages when compared to the present invention.
The first technique requires a source of compressed air, such as a tank or canister. Filling, transporting and using such a canister represents a significant inconvenience and burden for the user. Often, additional equipment such as regulators, evaporation chambers, multistage regulators and complicated timing circuits are required to reduce and control the very high pressure in the cylinder to a level suitable for launching the projectile. This further increases the cost and complexity of such an air gun. Additionally, in the case of carbon dioxide driven air or paintball guns, there is a large variation in the velocity of the projectile with varying ambient temperatures. Furthermore, these tanks store an incredible amount of energy which, if released suddenly through a tank fault, could represent a significant safety factor. Disposable cartridges, which can be used in less costly air guns, significantly increase refuse issues. Additional teachings such as those contained in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,516,791, 6,474,326, 5,727,538 and 6,532,949 teach of various ways of porting and controlling high pressure air supplies to improve the reliability of air guns (specifically paintball guns and the like) by differentiating between the airstream which is delivered to the bolt which facilitates chambering the projectile and the airstream which pushes the projectile out of the barrel. All of these patents still suffer from the major inconvenience and potential safety hazard of storing a large volume of highly compressed gas within the air gun. Additionally, as they combine electronic control with the propulsion method of stored compressed gas, the inherent complexity of the mechanism increases, thus, increasing cost and reliability issues. Further, U.S. Pat. No. 6,142,137 teaches about using electrical means to assist in the trigger control of a compressed air gun such as a paintball gun. In this patent, an electromotive device is used in conjunction with electronics to define various modes of fire control such as single shot, burst or automatic modes. While this addresses the ability of multiple modes of fire, it does not solve the fundamental propulsion problem associated with gas cylinders and, in addition, it is expensive and complicated.
The second technique is actually quite simple and has been used for quite a few years in many different types of pellet, “bb” or air rifles. The basic principle is to store energy in a spring which is later released to rapidly compress air. This air then pushes the projectile out of the barrel at high velocity. Problems with this method include the need to “cock” the spring between shots. Thus, it is only suitable for single shot devices and is limited to very slow rates of fire. Furthermore, the spring results in a double recoil effect when it is released. The first recoil is due to the unwinding of the spring and the second recoil is due to the spring slamming the piston into the end of the cylinder (i.e. forward recoil). Additionally, the spring air rifles require a significant amount of maintenance and, if dry-fired, the mechanism can be damaged. Finally, the effort required for such “cocking” is often substantial and can be difficult for many individuals. References to these style air guns can be found in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,128,753, 3,212,490, 3,523,538, and 1,830,763. Additional variations on the above technique have been attempted through the years including using an electric motor to cock the spring that drives a piston. This variation is detailed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,899,717 and 5,129,383. While this innovation solves the problem of cocking effort, the resulting air rifle still suffers from a complicated mechanism, double recoil and maintenance issues associated with the spring piston system. Another mechanism which uses a motor to wind a spring is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,261,384. Again, the use of indirect means to store the electrical energy in a spring before release to the piston to push the projectile results in an inefficient and complicated assembly. Furthermore, the springs in such systems are highly stressed mechanical elements that are prone to breakage and which increase the weight of the air gun. A similar reference can be seen in U.S. Pat. No. 1,447,458 which shows a spring winding and then delivery to a piston to compress air and propel a projectile. In this case, the device is for non-portable operation.
The third technique, using a hand pump to pressurize the air, is often used on low end devices and suffers from the need to pump the air gun between 2 to 10 times to build up enough air supply for sufficient projectile velocity. This again limits the air rifle or paintball gun to slow rates of fire. Additionally, because of the delay between when the air is compressed and when the compressed air is released to the projectile, variations in the energy are quite common for a standard number of pumps. Further taught in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,568,432 and 2,834,332 is a method to use a solenoid to directly move a piston which compresses air and forces the projectile out of the air rifle. While this solves the obvious problem of manually pumping a chamber up in order to fire a gun, these devices suffer from the inability to store sufficient energy in the air stream. Solenoids are inefficient devices and can only convert very limited amounts of energy due to their operation. Furthermore, since the air stream is coupled directly to the projectile in this technique, the projectile begins to move as the air is being compressed. This limits the ability of the solenoid to store energy in the air stream to a very short time period and further relegates its use to low energy air rifles. In order to improve the design, the piston must actuate in an extremely fast time frame in order to prevent significant projectile movement during the compression stroke. This results in a very energetic piston mass similar to that shown in spring piston designs and further results in the undesirable double recoil effect as the piston mass must come to a halt. Additionally, this technique suffers from dry-fire in that the air is compressed between the piston and the projectile. A missing projectile allows the air to communicate to the atmosphere through the barrel and can damage the mechanism in a dry-fire scenario. Another variant of this approach is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 1,375,653, which uses an internal combustion engine instead of a solenoid to act against the piston. Although this solves the issue of sufficient power, it is no longer considered an air rifle as it becomes a combustion driven gun. Moreover, it suffers from the aforementioned disadvantages including complexity and difficulty in controlling the firing sequence. Further taught in U.S. Pat. No. 4,137,893 is the use of an air compressor coupled to a storage tank which is then coupled to the air gun. Although this solves the issue of double recoil, it is not suitable to a portable system due to inefficiencies of compressing air and the large tank volume required. When air is used in this fashion, it compresses via adiabatic means, but the heat of compression is dissipated due to the large volume of air and the subsequent storage in a tank. In order to overcome the variation in air pressure, further expense and complexity in terms of valving and regulators must be added. A variation of the above is to use a direct air compressor as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 1,743,576. Again, due to the large volume of air between the compression means and the projectile, much of the heat of compression is lost leading to a very inefficient operation. Additionally, this patent teaches of a continuously operating device which suffers from a significant lock time (time between trigger pull and projectile leaving the barrel) as well as the inability to run in a semiautomatic or single shot mode. Further disadvantages of this device include the pulsating characteristics of the air stream which are caused by the release and reseating of the check valve during normal operation.
The fourth technique is to use direct mechanical action on the projectile itself. The teachings in U.S. Pat. Nos. 1,343,127 and 2,550,887 represent such mechanisms. Limitations of this approach include difficulty in achieving high projectile velocity since the transfer of energy must be done extremely rapidly between the impacting hammer and the projectile. Additionally, this method suffers from the need to absorb a significant impact as the solenoid plunger must stop and return for the next projectile. This can cause a double-recoil firing characteristic. Since the solenoid plunger represents a significant fraction of the moving mass (i.e. it often exceeds the projectile weight) this type of system is very inefficient and limited to low velocity, low energy air guns as may be found in toys and the like. Variations of this method include those disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,694,815 in which a hammer driven by a spring contacts the projectile. The spring is “cocked” via an electric motor, but again, this does not overcome the prior mentioned limitations.
All of the currently available devices suffer from a number of disadvantages, some of which include:                1. Difficult operation. Cocking or pumping air rifles can be time consuming and a physical chore.        2. Inability to rapidly move between single fire, semiautomatic, burst or automatic modes. Inability to support rapid-fire operation required by the above.        3. Significant inconvenience in the refilling transport and use of high-pressure gas cylinders.        4. Non-portability. Traditional air rifles at carnivals and the like are tethered to a compressed air supply or due to inefficient compressor operation require a large power source such as a wall outlet.        5. Double recoil effects.        6. Complicated mechanisms and air porting schemes leading to potentially expensive production costs and reliability issues.        7. Inefficient usage and/or coupling of the compressed air to the projectile resulting in low energy projectiles and large energy input requirements.        